I once visited Morocco in late February to look at wild flowers. We toured between the Mediterranean coast and the Middle Atlas. It snowed for 7 days. Higher up the snow settled lower down it didn’t. This was raw weather just like a bad winter week in Britain. However we saw and photographed several of my winter-flowering favourites including Ranunculus calandrinoides and several more plants which might be good new winter-flowering plants for British gardens. Given the awful weather we experienced, Britain should provide a comparable winter environment.
I’ve grown the Ranunculus outside in improved alkaline clay soil in two places underneath a hawthorn tree for several years including all the recent extremely cold winters. It begins to flower in December and continues right through till March when it suddenly burgeons. Winter in Morocco might have its parallels with winter in Britain but summer doesn’t. How often do we have searing summer heat and no rain?
Here’s the rub. I can show people a pot full of this plant in bloom at Christmas and they ask, “Is it hardy?” I hesitate, the briefest hesitation, and answer, “Yes.” They say, “What do you mean?” I think, “What part of “Yes” don’t they understand” but of course all they’ve heard was the slight hesitation which was there because in Britain the plant might die IN SUMMER, of wet!
Hardiness is a difficult concept. Hence the hawthorn whose roots dry out the soil in summer but allow the winter sun to shine through.
